Tauseef Shah, a PhD candidate in Molecular and Integrative Physiology, joined our laboratory just before winter break. He is from Srinagar Kashmir, a place located at the northernmost end of India, surrounded by China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. He lived most of his life in Kashmir and received his degree in veterinary medicine in 2011. After graduation from veterinary school, he received a Junior Research Fellowship from Indian Council of Agricultural Research to pursue masters in Veterinary Medicine from the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI). He studied in IVRI for almost a year and then moved to the University of Wisconsin – Madison as an Honorary Fellow to work as a Research Associate in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences (beginning of 2012). He spent almost a year and a half in Wisconsin and got a great deal of exposure to scientific research. After Wisconsin, he moved to Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2013 to get another masters in Animal Science. In 2015, he finally moved to Urbana and started his Ph.D. career at the University of Illinois. Besides his passion for research, he likes to sleep, cook for friends, and barbecue. He loves scuba diving and plans to get a license so that he can go on more diving adventures after finishing his PhD.
Map taken from Wikipedia.